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"Don't forget to pay the cashier on your way down. "
.
errors. (In Darwin's world, of course, a
certain number of those mutations are
necessary.) Endy said, "If you cowd com-
plement evolution with a secondary path,
decode a genome, take it off-line to the
level of information"-in other words,
break it down to its specific sequences of
DNA the way one wowd break down the
code in a software program-"we can
then design whatever we want, and re-
compile it," which cowd permit scientists
to prevent many genetic diseases. "At that
point, you can make disposable biological
62 THE NEW YORKER, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
.
systems that don't have to produce off-
spring, and you can make much simpler
. "
organIsms.
Endy stopped long enough for me to
digest the fact that he was talking about
building our own children. "If you look
at human beings as we are today, one
wowd have to ask how much of our own
design is constrained by the fact that we
have to be able to reproduce," he said.
In fact, those constraints are significant.
In theory, at least, designing our own
offspring cowd make those constraints
disappear. Before speaking about that,
however, it would be necessary to ask
two essential questions: What sorts of
risk does that bring into play, and what
sorts of opportunity?
The deeply unpleasant risks associ-
ated with synthetic biology are not hard
to imagine: who would control this
technology, who would pay for it, and
how much would it cost? Would we all
have access or, as in the 1997 film "Gat-
taca," which envisaged a world where
the most successful children were eu-
genically selected, would there be ge-
netic haves and have-nots and a new
type of discrimination-genoism-to
accompany it? Moreover, how safe can
it be to manipulate and create life? How
likely are accidents that would unleash
organisms onto a world that is not pre-
pared for them? And will it be an easy
technology for people bent on destruc-
tion to acquire? 'We are talking about
things that have never been done be-
fore," Endy said. "If the society that
powered this technology collapses in
some way, we would go extinct pretty
quickly. You wouldn't have a chance to
revert back to the farm or to the pre-
farm. We would just be gone. "
Those fears have existed since humans
began to transplant genes in crops. They
are the central reason that opponents of
genetically engineered food invoke the
precautionary principle, which argues that
potential risks must always be given more
weight than possible benefits. That is cer-
tainly the approach suggested by people
like Jim Thomas, ofETC, who describes
Endy as "the alpha Synthusiast." But he
also regards Endy as a reflective scientist
who doesn't discount the possible risks of
his field. "T 0 his credit, I think he's the
one who's most engaged with these is-
" Th . d
sues, omas saJ. .
The debate over genetically engi-
neered food has often focussed on theo-
retical harm rather than on tangible
benefits. "If you build a bridge and it falls
down, you are not going to be permitted
to design bridges ever again," Endy said.
"But that doesn't mean we showd never
build a new bridge. There we have ac-
cepted the fact that risks are inevitable."
He believes the same should be true of
engineering biology.
We also have to think about our soci-
etý s basic goals and how this science might
help us achieve them. 'We have seen an